‘We’re off to Marsden Jazz Festival. Flat caps are mandatory.’
Stepping off the train at Marsden, you are immediately greeted with the gentle lull of big band jazz over the breeze. Almost like a chaperone, the music leads you deeper into the quaint village. Immediately, you are lost in the charm of the old-world cafés, pubs, bakeries and charity shops that dot along the high street. At the top of the road, a bandstand perches on the edge of a little market selling all manner of rural wares; jams, rustic carpentry, home-brewed beer. You would be forgiven for thinking Marsden to be a quiet place, but there is nothing quiet about it today.
Thousands have flocked to the village for its annual jazz festival. Started in 1992, Marsden Jazz Festival is one of the region’s most popular of its type. And you can tell. There are folks everywhere. Middle aged farmer types with flat caps and pea coats, hipsters in their cardigans, families with excitable youngsters. Every venue is absolutely rammed. Smaller venues – such as the Peel One stage – are packed out to the brim in a matter of minutes making for a very raucous atmosphere. The sheer size of a crowd at a ‘band battle’ event – in which three brass ensembles went head to head on the street – ground the pedestrian traffic from venue to venue to an absolute halt.
It was these crowds that pushed us up to the bandstand to see Greenhead College Big Band where there was a lot more room to breathe. A dazzling set of crooning swing classics are played very uniformly by this group of talented young players and is more than enough to get the familial crowd of the young and old dancing out of their seats. Further down the street, the smooth sounds of the Lee Jones Duo commandeer people from their route into the Venue 25 tent, hypnotising passers-by with the virtuosic stylings of their Bossa Nova style (with a Jaco Pastorius cover thrown in for good measure!) Despite the overcast disappointment of the weather, Lee Jones provides enough sunshine in his set for all.
Young jazz trio Spilt Milk, though billed to be an off-the-wall amalgamation of free jazz, hip hop and drum & bass, underwhelmed with what was instead a nervy set of piano jazz instrumentals. The little tap room in which they were housed meant that the audience were packed like a congregation of sardines in a very tiny tin. The same problem was faced by the Samuel C Lees Gypsy Jazz Trio in the aforementioned Peel One venue. Their position in the very back corner – and the nature of their unplugged, nylon string delivery – meant that the crowds made it very difficult to see or hear very much of their set at all. Nonetheless, they motored their way through complex guitar arrangements, showing off virtuosity at every point in their relentless hour-long set.
The day, however, belonged to The Black Sheikhs. ‘This one goes out to the moshpit!’ roars band leader – and general jazz weirdo – Lord Acton before firing into a dixieland rendition of Nirvana’s Come As You Are. He is, of course, referring to the army of children jiving and dancing at the foot of the stage. Dressed in tuxedos and brogues, the five-piece – fresh off their Shangri La spot at Glastonbury – deliver a captivating set of rock and pop reimaginings in a hot jazz swagger.
Sitting outside a café, the sounds of jazz meandering through the streets, happy families walk by. If you close your eyes you might mistake it for a Parisian vista, but nay, tis but a tiny Yorkshire village. A tiny Yorkshire village that leaves a huge impression.
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